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Boers are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled Dutch Cape Colony, but the United Kingdom incorporated it into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from Trekboer then later "boer", which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
The written history of the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa began when Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias became the first modern European to round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed along the whole coast of South Africa on his way to India, landed at St Helena Bay for 8 days, and made a detailed description of the area. The Portuguese, attracted by the riches of Asia, made no permanent settlement at the Cape Colony. However, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) settled the area as a location where vessels could restock water and provisions.
Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck was a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company.
The Great Trek was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial administration. The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British Empire. It was also reflective of an increasingly common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town. Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers, meaning "pioneers", "pathfinders" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
The following lists events that happened during the 1790s in South Africa.
The following lists events that happened during the 1780s in South Africa.
The following lists events that happened during the 1740s in South Africa.
The following lists events that happened during the 1720s in South Africa.
Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape on 6 April 1652, setting up a supply station and fortifications for the Dutch East India Company. The decade saw the beginning of European settlement, marked by the introduction of crops from Europe and the New World and culminating in war with the Khoikhoi in 1659.
The following lists events that happened during the 1660s in South Africa.
The following lists events that happened during the 1680s in South Africa.
Simon van der Stel was the first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony (1691), the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. He was interested in botany, establishing vineyards Groot and Klein Constantia, and producing a famous dessert wine. He is considered one of the founders of South African viticulture.
Genadendal is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, built on the site of the oldest mission station in the country. It was originally known as Baviaanskloof, but was renamed Genadendal in 1806. Genadendal was the place of the first Teachers' Training College in South Africa, founded in 1838.
Willem Adriaan van der Stel was an Extraordinary Councillor of the Dutch East Indies, and Governor of the Cape Colony, a way station for the Dutch East India Company (VOC), from 23 January 1699 to 1707. He was dismissed after a revolt and was exiled to the Netherlands.
The Great Brak River is a river in the Western Cape, South Africa. The mouth of the river lies at the town of Great Brak River which falls under the Mossel Bay Municipality. The nearest towns are Mossel Bay, 24 km to the west, and the largest town in the southern Cape George, 34 km to the east by road.
Hieronymous Cruse was a soldier and explorer for the Dutch East India Company in South Africa.
The Schoonenberg, also spelled Schonenberg and Schonenbergh, was a trading ship operated by the VOC between 1717 and 1722. The ship, a Spiegelretourschip or Dutch East Indiaman, was damaged beyond repair in an accident at Struisbaai, South Africa on 20 November 1722, during a return voyage to the Netherlands from Batavia, and was later burned and destroyed. This happened on the second of two calamitous voyages; on the maiden sailing in 1720, 75 of the crew died when the ship ran out of water and food on the leg from Cape Town to Ceylon, before finally reaching the diversion port of Mocha after spending 6 months stranded in present-day Somalia.
Adriaan van Kervel was the governor of the Dutch Cape Colony from 31 August 1737 to 19 September 1737. After only three weeks of serving as the Governor he died and Daniël van den Henghel was appointed in an acting capacity.
Jan de la Fontaine was governor of the Cape from 1729 to 1737, after also acting as governor in 1724 to 1727.
Daniël van den Henghel was a VOC official, fiscal and acting governor at the Cape.
References
See Years in South Africa for list of References